WE think things have reached a sorry impasse when dear Elsie Tu, chairwoman of the Legco House Committee, has to virtually go on her hands and knees to get a few honourable members to join her at dinner with Alastair Goodlad, the British minister with special responsibility for Hong Kong.

In the present climate when Hong Kong has virtually turned its back on the mother country (or should that be the other way around) this is hardly surprising.

But doughty Elsie was not giving up that easily. So mentioning yesterday in the chamber that only ''one or two members'' had expressed any interest in a dinner date with Goodlad, she tried the ''you don't have to pay for it'' line.